By: Jolie Featherstone Director Rian Johnson (Looper, Star Wars: Episode XIII – The Last Jedi) makes a triumphant return to his whodunnit-loving form with Knives Out. Fourteen years after his much-loved debut feature, Brick, a passionately-told film noir set in a modern-day Southern California high school, Johnson’s Knives Out charmed audiences with one of the most talked-about films at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
In Frank D’Angelo’s The Red Maple Leaf, special agent Alfonso Palermo (D’Angelo) asks potential suspects to “indulge him” during interrogations. I’ve heard some describe D’Angelo’s filmmaking as indulgent, which is why I smirked whenever Palermo asked this. Whether this was a cheeky wink toward critics is a mystery, and will probably remain unanswered.
By: Addison Wylie David Fincher is a masterful filmmaker, but he’s even better at spinning a web of mystery and suspense. Numerous films in his catalogue deal with puzzling content, and not once have I seen him drop the ball. He’s also a fantastic handler of, shall we say, hidden motivations. Gone Girl is an extremely difficult film to delve into without giving away too much – bear with me. There are people in Fincher’s…